The Lonely Witness

by William Boyle

  Amy goes through a list of things she might say to Diane when she gets off the phone. She’s running low.

  Diane hangs up and gives her back the phone. “Who would do this?” she says. “Who would hurt my baby? The detective said they’re following leads. That means they don’t know. That means he’s out there, whoever he is, probably not even giving a thought to Vincent.”

  Amy wonders how it would sound if she explained that she had the murder weapon at home in a box of raspberry-mint ice pops. That she had cleaned it off in a diner toilet and then again in her own sink, impeding an investigation for no good reason. Diane would probably think she’d absolutely lost her mind.

  “You can’t get caught up thinking about that now,” Amy says. “One thing at a time.” She’s learned from so many of the old people she visits and sits with how to rely on clichés. It’s something she hadn’t had to do in a long time, not since her grandparents.

  “You’re right.” Diane reaches out and puts her hand on Amy’s knee. “I’m so glad you’re here. God sent you to me today for a reason.”

  At the morgue, Amy manages to stay out of the way. She sits on a hard blue chair in a waiting room of some kind, while Diane deals with the medical examiner and his assistant. The morgue has the feel of a loading dock. It’s cold and eerie. The strange, strong chemical smell in the air is overpowering.

  The driver is waiting for them outside. That was Amy’s idea. She doesn’t know how long anything will take, but she wants to have the car there, ready to go.

  Diane wanted her to come along to see Vincent, but Amy refused. She said she didn’t think it was appropriate to see him like that, since she didn’t know him. Diane said okay.

  Amy wasn’t even sure what was going on now, to be honest. Was Diane identifying the body, or had she already done that? Was she simply saying good-bye? Was there a grief counselor present to give her some advice? Would the detectives be back?

  Diane comes out and collapses into the chair next to Amy. “I can’t anymore,” she says. “The funeral home takes over now.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. I’m glad you told the driver to wait. I want to go home. I just want to be home.”

  They go outside and get back into Vincenzo’s car. Vincenzo is respectful enough to remain quiet. They head back to Diane’s, passing other cars, people on sidewalks, action everywhere, but nothing seems real.

  “It didn’t even look like him,” Diane says. “He looked so little. He’d been”—she raises her hands to her throat—“butchered.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Amy says again. How many times has she said that already? “The medical examiner was an arrogant prick. ‘That’s my Vincent,’ I says to him. He just scoffed. He sees people like me all the time. People who can’t handle this. I was firm. I didn’t let him see my cracks.”

  “Forget him. People with jobs like that, they become desensitized.”

  “I can’t believe I forgot my phone. What if the detectives are trying to call me? What if they have the guy who did this in custody?”

  “I’m sure they’ll be in touch again soon.”

  “What if they’re not? What if this is it? My son’s dead, and his killer just goes free. There’s hardly anyone to even come to his wake. I’ll ask Monsignor Ricciardi to do the Mass. He’ll do a nice job. What else? What’s my life now?”

  Amy thinks about Vincent in a cheap casket in a near-empty room. “Oh, jeez,” she says, and she immediately feels terrible about it.

  “I’m sorry,” Diane says, leaning against the window. “I don’t want to burden you. You don’t even really know me. I’ve already asked too much.”

  Amy sits up. “I’m sorry I said that. It was just a dumb reflex. I’m happy to help, Diane.”

  Diane nods against the glass. “Thank you, sweetie. There is one thing, if you don’t mind. Vincent needs a suit to be buried in. I think he has one at his apartment. I bought him one down at Kohl’s a few years ago for a wake we had to go to. If he didn’t sell it, I’m sure it’s still in his closet. I have his key. Would you mind going? Only if it wouldn’t be too much trouble. I just don’t have the energy.”

  “What about the cops?” Amy asks. “Won’t they be there?”

  “They don’t even know about his apartment. They think he lived with me.”

  “That’s right.” A slight thrill runs through Amy at the prospect of being alone in Vincent’s apartment, at the thought of going through his things and getting a better sense of who exactly he was and what exactly he was hiding. “I’d be happy to go.”

  The driver agrees to take Amy to West Eighth and Highlawn. From there, she’ll pay him and let him go, because she’s not sure how long it’ll take in Vincent’s apartment. They stop at Diane’s, and Diane runs in to get Vincent’s key. She tries to give Amy money to pay for the car service, but Amy refuses. She doesn’t have a ton of money left, but it feels extra wrong to let Diane pay. Diane thanks her again, lets them know the address and that he lives—lived—in the downstairs apartment, and disappears back inside.

  “Wow,” Vincenzo says, heading down the block. “Tough situation.”

  “You can say that again,” Amy says. “You don’t even know her that well, huh?”

  “Just from church.”

  “I mostly pieced it together, but what happened exactly, you don’t mind me asking?” He turns left onto Bath Avenue and then makes another quick left onto Bay Thirty-Fifth.

  “Her son was killed. Stabbed. They don’t know who or why.”

  “This was over by Kings Highway? I read about it.”

  “Where? What’d it say?”

  “Not much. Just a stabbing. Looking for information, that kind of thing.

  I can’t remember where I read it. Maybe the Post?”

  “Just terrible,” Amy says, again channeling how someone like Mrs. Epifanio might react.

  Vincenzo takes a right under the El on Eighty-Sixth Street and then a left onto Twenty-Fourth Avenue. They’re quiet now. Another left on Stillwell Avenue. A quick right onto Highlawn. Amy shudders as they pass West Tenth. She catches a quick glimpse of some yellow crime-scene tape strung up between a telephone pole and a tree, but nothing else to indicate what happened. Vincenzo takes a right on West Eighth, headed toward Avenue S. More row houses, very similar to the block where Vincent was killed. He pulls up at a hydrant across from a house with a tin awning and an American flag on a crooked pole in the front yard.

  “This is the address she said, I think,” Vincenzo says.

  Amy looks out at the little house with green aluminum siding. It’s not lost on her that Vincent lived in a basement apartment, just like her. She wonders if his landlord is nosy, too. If she will be pounced on by an old man or woman watching from behind the blinds upstairs the moment she puts the key in the door. She believes the possibility is very high. “Thanks so much,” she says to Vincenzo, passing thirty bucks up to him, the fare plus a good tip.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” he says. “Give the lady my condolences. And here’s my card with my cell. You need a ride anywhere, just give me a call.” He passes back a plain white business card with his name and phone number. She pockets it, thanks him again, and gets out of the car.

  9

  Amy opens the front gate. A laminated piece of paper that reads no soliciting hangs from the fence post. A row of eight empty Cento tomato cans, their yellow labels peeling, are lined up going to the front stoop of the upstairs apartment. Three cement steps lead down to Vincent’s. She can’t tell much of anything from the outside. It’s a typical door, white paint chipped away, sad brass knocker. A mailbox to the right of the door is overflowing with circulars and Chinese menus. The blinds are drawn in the front window of Vincent’s place. Two slats are broken. A deck of cards is propped against the window on the sill. She takes out the key. She thinks of Diane coming over here to clean like a maid.

  “Hey!” a voice above her says. “Who are you?”

&n
bsp; Amy hadn’t even heard the window of the upstairs apartment slide open.

  A woman is behind the screen. She’s old, grizzled, with whitish-blue hair. Sitting down. Dragging on a cigarette. “Hi there,” Amy says. “Vincent’s mother asked me to come here and get a suit for him.”

  “Dumb shit got himself killed, huh? I’m surprised the cops haven’t been by yet.”

  “He was killed, yes.” Amy omits the fact that the cops don’t seem to know about this apartment.

  “He’s paid up through the end of the month, but tell the mother that his stuff will need to be out by then.”

  “She’s got a lot going on right now. I’m sure she’d appreciate just a little bit of extra time.”

  “I’m not running a charity. I’ve got people lining up for this joint. Vincent was a bum. I don’t even know how he scraped the rent together most months. Place is a disaster, you’ll see. I had to pull inspection on him here and there, so we didn’t get roaches or rats. What’s your name?”

  “Amy.”

  “You knew this bum?”

  “I didn’t. I know his mother from church. I’m just helping her out.”

  “A churchgoer. That’s nice. Vincent should’ve gone to church. I used to, but I stopped going years ago, when my daughter moved to Long Island.” She takes a puff. “Vincent’s got a suit? That’s a shocker.”

  “His mother says she bought him one for a wake.”

  “That I believe. I’m Marie, by the way. You need anything, let me know. Matter of fact, you want to come up and have a cup of coffee first? I’ll put on a fresh pot.”

  “I’m sorry, Marie. All that’s going on, I’m in a little bit of a rush.”

  “I get it. Good luck down there.” Marie blows a line of smoke out through the screen and slams the window shut.

  The key in Amy’s hand feels slick. She looks around. She hasn’t been thinking clearly. Vincent was friends with the killer. She’s sure he knows where Vincent’s apartment is even if the cops don’t. They had to be headed back here when the disagreement between them—or whatever it was that sparked the attack—happened. If she was just being paranoid earlier, she has good reason to feel like she’s being watched now. Maybe the killer has already been inside. Maybe he’s looking for something. Maybe he found it. Maybe he is inside.

  She thinks about walking away, going to Kohl’s or somewhere and just buying Vincent another suit to be buried in. Too late. She doesn’t know his size. But she can just call Diane and tell her the suit wasn’t at the apartment. She can ask his size then.

  But she goes in, turning the knob and pushing open the door. Is part of her hoping to confront the killer? Or is she merely hoping to untangle the web of Vincent’s life, just a little?

  The apartment is a hidey-hole. The front window is the only one she sees. A dirty sofa is strewn with clothes, as she’d imagined, and the cushions are pulled out. A small flat-screen TV is on the floor, a video-game system hooked up to it. A blue beanbag chair is close to the TV, Vincent’s shape still dug into it. A bright yellow, diamond-shaped traffic sign that reads caution manhole hangs from the wall to her left over a ratty bureau plastered in holographic Giants and Yankees stickers. The rug is clumpy with dust.

  There’s a small kitchen nook at the back of the apartment. A laptop sits on a table, its screen cracked. A mini fridge, just like hers, is nudged into the corner on top of a small counter. The cabinets are all flung open, everything inside tossed around. Drawers hang out, too, heavy with junk. She walks to a door at the back of the apartment and sees that it leads into a small bedroom. A twin bed on a cheap metal frame. Bare walls. Clothes everywhere. Some DVDs. A bathroom the size of a closet in the corner. She can see a disposable razor and a tube of toothpaste on the edge of the sink.

  The smell in the air is musky. Man funk: unwashed clothes, unwashed sheets. The place hasn’t been vacuumed. Vincent hasn’t sprayed Febreze on the sofa or bed. There’s probably week-old garbage in a skanky plastic bin under the kitchen sink. If she pokes her head in the bathroom, she’s sure she’ll see a scummy toilet and get a heavy whiff of old piss.

  She opens a narrow closet right inside the front door. A snow shovel slides out. Bag of rock salt next to that. Snow boots. She guesses that Vincent would go around the neighborhood to shovel for a few extra bucks when there was snow. The closet is full of jackets and sweatshirts drooping from cheap hangers. She feels around and finds a suit wrapped in dry cleaner’s plastic. She pulls it out. A Post-it note is stuck to the plastic: Vincent, I had this cleaned for you. It’s not just for wakes. Wear it to your next interview. Mom. Diane must’ve really tried hard with him. Amy imagines that he was uncommunicative and ungrateful. That’s got to be a tough thing to carry. And to know now that there’s no growing out of it, no getting better.

  She folds the suit over the arm of the sofa. She doesn’t want to leave. She’s not sure what she expects. She guesses she expects to find porn open on the laptop when she presses the power button, or drugs under the bed, or just ketchup packets in the fridge, traces of a life lived in the gutter.

  But there isn’t anything like that, as far as she can tell. The computer powers on to a game of solitaire. The fridge is full of cold cuts and orange juice and Bud Light. The DVDs in his bedroom are action movies: Out for Justice, Hard to Kill, Drug War, Bad Boys, Breakdown, and Hard Target. She goes through the kitchen cabinets and finds some broken plastic bowls and plates. In a drawer next to the sink, she finds a notepad, a Ziploc bag full of loose change, and some hair ties. She wonders if he had a girlfriend who left those behind. She looks for other signs of a girlfriend, but nothing points in that direction. A few dishes are heaped in the sink. The drain is clogged with soggy, ballooned pieces of elbow macaroni, the kind that comes in boxes of mac and cheese. She finds a few cans of corned beef hash stacked in a dish basin under the sink. She can’t believe that a man under seventy would eat food like that.

  Next to the basin, leaned up against the pipes, is something wrapped in striped dish towels. She takes it out. It’s heavy. Her mind is stuck on the shape—rectangular. Maybe it’s some kind of case, and when she opens the case, she’ll find a gun or drugs.

  She pulls back the towels. It’s a cardboard box with red marks all over it.

  The flaps are gluey with packing tape residue. She peels them back. What she sees first is knots of Bubble Wrap. She sticks her hand in to feel around. Metal tubing and pipe fittings, that’s all that’s in there, probably not even Vincent’s.

  Back in the bedroom, a fuzzy blue robe is crumpled on the floor on the far side of the bed. She can’t picture Vincent wearing it. She picks it up and feels around in the pockets. In the first one, she finds only lint. In the second, there’s a small, unopened packet of Extra Strength Tylenol—the kind you pay too much for at a deli—and a crumpled receipt in faded black print.

  She notices something then. The rug in the corner is curling, like someone has pulled it up. Everything could be something now. She goes to the corner and falls to her knees. She yanks the rug back as far as it will go, a Velcro crackle echoing through the apartment. Again, she expects drugs, or an envelope full of cash. Again, there’s nothing—just an unfinished wood floor covered in rings of mold. She pushes the rug back into place as best she can.

  She sits on Vincent’s bed. The sheets are filthy. She wonders if he ever even washed them. She pictures him bunching them up and putting them in a laundry bag and bringing them over to 3 Stars, drinking across the street at Homestretch while he waited.

  She goes back out to the living room. It occurs to her then that someone else has definitely been here. The open cabinets and drawers. The cushions pulled out. The rug yanked up like that. A creeping sense that the things she’s touching have been touched by another person not too long ago.

  She’s thinking also how she’d always wished she had the guts to go into Bob Tully’s garage and do this very thing. Hunt around. See if there was some trace left behind of the man he’d killed�
��a wallet, a ring, a watch.

  The thrill again. She’s enjoying this. She should be looking over her shoulder, afraid that the killer will pounce from a closet or jump out from the shower stall and attack with a longer knife, but she feels okay. Content, even.

  On a final pass back to the door, she opens the top drawer of the bureau under the traffic sign. It’s filled with paperback books. Westerns and horror and some sci-fi. She opens the bottom two drawers. One is loaded with underwear and socks. The other is empty except for an old telephone with its cord wrapped around the receiver. She goes back to the top drawer and starts flipping through the pages of the books.

  In one of the books, Silhouette at Sundown, its edges green, library-stamped, a black X on the fragile spine, she finds a four-by-six envelope sealed with Scotch tape. No writing on it. She turns the envelope over in her hands and picks at the tape. She hears Marie’s footsteps upstairs and a door opening. She guesses that Marie is starting to be suspicious of her. What could be taking her so long? Maybe she’s not who she says she is.

  She tears open the flap of the envelope. She can see that there’s a picture inside. Just as she’s about to withdraw the picture, there’s a knock on the front door. She shoves the envelope inside her hoodie and picks up the suit. Another knock.

  From the other side: “It’s Marie. You okay in there?”

  Amy opens the door, holding up the suit, her elbow pressed against her side to keep the envelope in place. “Took me a second to find it.”

  “I’m sure,” Marie says, stooped over like a witch. “Real pigsty, huh?”

  “Pretty bad, I guess.”

  “I should go digging around. All the crap I put up with, I deserve a reward.” Marie laughs.

  Amy forces a smile. “I’ll be on my way.”

  “Tell me, you been hunting around, you find anything good?”

  “Corned beef hash and some action movies. That’s about it.”